Night lights at Kinnick

The Hawkeyes will kick off at night at least once this season.

An e-mail that was traced back to the UI said Iowa's Oct. 2 home game against Penn State will kick off at 7 p.m and will be televised on ESPN, ESPN2, or ABC. The e-mail also said Iowa won't play anymore night games during its Big Ten schedule.

The Sept. 18 game at Arizona will likely be a 7 p.m. or 7:30 kickoff, which means 9 or 9:30 Iowa time. That would be a Fox Sports Net time slot.

The competition for the 2:30 central time slot on Sept. 18 is Houston at UCLA, USC at Minnesota and Nebraska at Washington.

Arizona is up in the air, but the Penn State 7 p.m. is apparently a done deal.

TV networks have until July to pick games they want to televise at night. But the Big Ten has a rule that prohibits its conference teams from playing night games in November. The league schedule is set through 2012, but after that there could be a push for the conference to move premier rivalry games (Ohio State-Michigan) into October, so they could be televised during primetime. Of course, Iowa and Minnesota would fit into that scenario, too.